


Ridgeline

by Andrithir



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Desperation, Gen, Last Stand, Pre-Mass Effect 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-17
Updated: 2016-10-17
Packaged: 2018-08-22 23:24:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8305307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Andrithir/pseuds/Andrithir
Summary: A battered and bruised Lieutenant Shepard makes a desperate last stand against btarian raiders.





	

With every step, his body cried out in defiance. With every step, the cold encroached on him. Black dots swarmed Shepard’s vision, as the smoky air burned his battered lungs. His heart hammered in his chest. Bullets splashed all around him, kicking up dirt and grass.  
Adam turned and raised his rifle, holding the trigger down. His weapon kicked in his hands, spewing slug after slug at the enemy. They were closing in now. He could hear their distinct snarls, the sharp lashings of their tongue.

“C’mon!” his wheezed, coughing up blood.

  
He took cover behind a tree, and waited for his pistol to cool. The batarian fire shredded the tree trunk, stripping away the bark. Shepard leaned out of cover, locked onto a flanker, and saturated the heat sink.  
The barrage of bullets overloaded the kinetic barriers, and tore into the batarian. Blood and gore spilled onto the dirt, and the enemy crumbled into a heap.  
Shepard’s chest sucked in air greedily, but his body still screamed for more. No matter how many laboured breaths he pulled, his body never got enough. He was drowning in his own blood; it was filling up his lungs.

“Lieutenant, hold on, we have a lock on your location,” his COMs squawked.

“Thank you,” he coughed.

The batarians pushed down on his right, herding him towards the left. Shepard pulled away from the tree, and staggered towards the fallen log below. He pulled himself over the trunk, feeling his kinetic barrier taking the hits. Adam stayed low, grabbed a fist full of dirt, and stuffed it into his wounds. Shepard hissed in pain, but at least it would stop the blood loss. He popped back out of cover again, and fired, saturating half the heat sink. His bullets peppered the rocks above, forcing the batarians back into cover. But they were enveloping him. Fire from both sides bashed through the trunk, making him move again.

Shepard crawled to a row of boulders, and rolled over it. He slammed into the rocks below, shooting pain through his body. Scrambling back to the lip, he leaned just over it, and fired again.

His rifle blinked red, the heat sink was saturated. He hunkered down, back against the rocks with both hands holding the pistol.

“Hck!”

The wind was knocked out of his chest, pain shot through his back. He heard the plates crack as an invisible hand threw him forward.  
Shepard coughed more blood onto the inside of his helmet; he pulled his battered form up, only to be spun forward again. Landing on his back, Shepard looked up at the burning sky. His left arm was on fire, and then numbness. He couldn’t move his left arm. Craning his head, he could see blood pour out of it.  
Adam grabbed another fistful of dirt, and clamped it into the wound. A guttural howl escaped his lips as another bullet his leg.  
He couldn’t stay here. He had to move. His body cried out in pain as he began his crawl. He threw his right arm over the ledge, and pulled.

The ground gave way beneath him. The wind whipped past him, stinging his eyes as he fell.  
_Thump!_  
He’d hit a tree.  
_Thump!_  
His chest slammed a rock.  
_Thump!_  
He tried to grab something anything, but there was too much pain, too much vertigo.  
_Crack!_  
He couldn’t think.   
_Thump!_  
He reached out with his good arm.  
_Thump!_  
His back slammed into ground. He was in an uncontrolled roll.  
_Crack!_  
His head bashed again the rocks, shattering the visor.  
_Fchk._  
Adam’s ribs broke.

He came to a stop at the bottom of the valley. He couldn’t think. His nerves were on fire.  
Everything hurt.  
His HUD was offline. He wasn’t getting any readings from his armour.  
Shepard needed to move, but he couldn’t feel his legs, he couldn’t breathe. Everything burned. Darkness was clouding his vision. He had to move. He had to do something, but his body was broken. He couldn’t feel the adrenaline anymore, his heart had stopped pounding.

He needed air, but his chest was barely moving.

His eyes desperately darted back and forth, there had to be something. Then he saw it; tall boulders that could buy him some more time.  
He clawed his way across the rocks, dragging himself a full body length before finding safety. He drew his sidearm out, holding the sights steady on the slope.

“C’mon,” he wheezed. “C’mon. I’m right fucking here!”

The first batarian entered his line of sight. He fired weapon, saturating the heat sink as he took down the enemy. The weapon hissed, venting the heat. He dropped the pistol beside him, and drew another back up.  
He emptied it along the ridgeline. Enemy fire hammered his position.

_Whump!_

Heat blistered across his skin, the blast of a rocket throwing him clear of cover and dumped him unceremoniously into a ravine. The numbed pain shot through his body, clenching his sternum. He hacked up more blood as bells rang in his ears. Bullets chipped away his position. Then one scored a hit.  
His right shoulder snapped back as a slug bored through the shoulder girdle.

“Oh god,” he groaned, trying to lift his head.

The ground shook beneath him, thunderous explosions filled his ears. He looked up at the slope and ridgeline, engulfed in columns of smoke and fire.  
Kodiak shuttles came flying in, their bay guns hammering away at the hill. The sound of friendly guns roaring in the night had never sounded so beautiful.  
He felt a hand on him.

“We got you, LT. We got you.” It was the Alliance PJs.

“Just hold on, we got you.”

“Thank you,” Adam murmured, his eyes glassing over.

“LT, just keep talking to me.”

“Thank you,” he uttered, barely above a whisper.

“Shit, he’s going into shock.”

“Stay with us, LT. We’re gonna get you home.”

“Thank you.”

Then blackness embraced him with cool loving arms.


End file.
